Transformed, Depressed and Stuck

Chapter 28.

C H A P T E R 2 8.

"So they did this to themselves?" Sitting upright, Choosy asked, as she lazily tied her hair back in a bun.

"Yes ma'am. But that is confidential information." Trig's voice had the monotonous feel to it, but he wasn't one bit disinterested. He was this big ball of information, and this ball was dying to pass the knowledge onto more people. He hated to not answer questions and Choosy had already learned how to take advantage of that.

"Confidential? Did they lock it into you or something?" This was meant to be a joke, hence Choosy was surprised when the robot replied to this with a, "Yes."

"And how do I unlock it?"

"You need to say the password out loud," Trig instructed.

"And what is the password?" Choosy almost laughed out loud at the thought of him actually answering that question, but, unfortunately, he wasn't as dumb as she thought he was.

"No, ma'am."

"Okay. Who set the password?"

"Neel Griffin."

Choosy grinned at the thought of Neel storming his grilled brain cells to figure out a password that wasn't so easily accessible.

"Its food, isn't it?"

He stood there staring, because he couldn't say yes or no. And she immediately knew it was a 'yes'.

"Okay, let me try. Brownies. Gingerbread man. Strawberry Waffles. Mint lollipops. Vanilla cupcakes. Mango Popsicles..."

Trig kept shaking his head left and right, evidently disappointed with Choosy's lack of imagination.

"Fried cockroaches. Skewered lizards. Poached snakes," she continued to guess slowly, her mind unable to come up with something that she might actually eat, "...chocolate frogs."

"Well done, ma'am." Trig announced as a clicking sound slightly came off his structure, along with a robotic feminine announcement that said, "Information unlocked."

"Chocolate frogs, really?" she asked, sniggering on the stupidity of it all. Seemed like Lola wasn't the only one who had read the Harry Potter Classics.

"Yes, ma'am. What else do you want to know?" Trig questioned, bubbling with energy to talk more about the million things that he knew.

"About The Population Project. What did the IAI do?" Choosy stood up, stretched her legs and started pacing in the room, too tired to have been sitting on the bed all day. She cast a little grin at Trig and desperately wanted him to smile back. Too impossible a dream.

"It happened on August 2, 2282. The world was overflowing with humans, and it was predicted that in less than ten years, Earth would die, simply because it couldn't stand the weight of so many humans, their houses and wouldn't be able to provide them even for their basic needs. This terrified the scientists. They started working on a virus that would limit their reproductive capabilities and stop a certain fraction of the human population from producing off-springs. This was designed to affect around one third of the human race but as soon as the virus spread, it found new carriers to live in and shockingly, within a matter of hours, it had already taken away the ability of seven by eights of the human race to reproduce at all."

A slight gasp escaped Choosy's lips as she muttered, "What? That's huge."

Trig continued with his story, seeming annoyed to have been interrupted mid sentence, "The realization hit pretty quick too. We started to take reverse missions and it failed miserably, every time. The people started dying as the virus also started to affect their immune systems. The IAI ended up curing it gradually, but half of the human race had already died by then. We need to save the other half now. And it's hard, since three by fourth of them has no chance of ever giving birth."